How Crazy Rich Asians Became the Film Audiences Need Right Now

A $34 million five-day opening proves inclusion is “not just this thing you are supposed to care about. It’s better for your bottom line,” said Nina Jacobson, a producer who knew the movie would open big.

Back in 2013, when Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson got ahold of Kevin Kwan’s best-selling debut novel, Crazy Rich Asians, there was no guarantee that this frothy romance between a Chinese-American economics professor and the charming heir to a Singaporean fortune could be adapted into a global box-office hit. Yet the film just opened with a $34 million domestic gross after only five days of release.

Jacobson and Simpson, producers best known for The Hunger Games trilogy and World War Z, respectively—and, who, in the last few years, have expanded their purview into television with such hits as The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,Pose, and The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story—were contemplating financing the entire project without the help of a studio. After all, Hollywood still was not taking the issue of representation seriously, the film was unlikely to feature any major (i.e., white) stars, and the producers had already gone up against the usual small-mindedness that has plagued the industry since its inception. This time, it manifested when one “well-meaning” studio executive asked if it was possible for lead character Rachel Chu to be replaced by a white woman.

“At that point, we really thought we’d do it independently for not much money,” said Simpson. “We were going to cast a bunch of Asian actors, some of whom will have a profile, but none of them will be the kind of people who can get the green light. If it’s a page-turner, we don’t think of the reasons why it won’t get made or can’t get made. It’s more, Do we feel like we’d love to go see this movie if it existed? Because, hopefully, [then] a pathway will open.”

Kwan bought into this vision, chose Simpson and Jacobson as his guides into the Hollywood morass, and optioned his manuscript to them for a measly $1. What some would view as a naive move proved to be quite sophisticated.

“I did that to uncomplicate things,” said Kwan, who spoke during the middle of a still frenetic press tour, as he watches Crazy Rich Asians roll out around the world. “I didn’t want money to get in the way of making this happen. I felt that instead of charging a huge option fee, I’d rather be intrinsically involved. I was made a partner.” As for the nonstop frenzy around the film’s release, Kwan said he feels like he’s “trying to climb out of a tidal wave,” adding, “I don’t want to even tell you the last time i bathed.”

The trio, as well as co-producer and financier John Penotti of Ivanhoe Pictures, diligently put together an alluring package that featured an initial adaptation from screenwriter Peter Chiarelli (The Proposal), a big-budget director with a penchant for striking visuals, Jon M. Chu (G.I. Joe: Retaliation), and re-writes centered on cultural nuance by Adele Lim (TV’s Lethal Weapon). Casting would go on to include Fresh Off the Boat star Constance Wu and relative newcomer Henry Golding as the romantic leads, as well as Michelle Yeoh,Awkwafina, and Ken Jeong.

The team then embarked on their project just as the industry was reckoning with its own culpability in regard to representation. That year, 2016, culminated in a number of embarrassing whitewashing attempts, indignities that fans found offensive and proved costly to the films’ bottom lines. An online petition was started to recast Scarlett Johansson after she nabbed the role of Major in Ghost in the Shell, a popular Japanese manga series. Emma Stone was forced to acknowledge the history of Hollywood whitewashing after playing Allison Ng, a one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter Hawaiian, and half-Swedish character in Cameron Crowe’sAloha. And Asian-American groups blasted Marvel for casting Tilda Swinton as a Tibetan monk in the Benedict Cumberbatch-starrer Doctor Strange. People were fed up.

“We heard these Asians speak up for the first time, and really demand that things change,” said Kwan. “We saw that these movies did not work—specifically because they ignored the fundamental rules about keeping your audience happy. Asian-Americans found their voice in a whole new way.”

Kwan also pointed to the 2016 Academy Awards, when host Chris Rock, digging deep into the controversy of #OscarsSoWhite, wound up offending a whole other group of people by trotting out three Asian kids to portray the Film Academy’s accountants—riffing on the stereotype that Asians are good at math. That night, Wu tweeted: “To parade little kids on stage w/no speaking lines merely to be the butt of a racist joke is reductive & gross.”

“Right when that reached a peak was when we were ready to bring [Crazy Rich Asians] to market,” Kwan said. “Timing was pure luck, but we became that movie [that could make things better].”

Penotti adds that movies like Straight Outta Compton and Hidden Figures also fueled the fire. “Commercial audiences indicated a willingness to consume more expansive entertainment,” he said. “The political discourse and the debate of globalism had earth-shattering adjustments.”

Soon, backing Crazy Rich Asians was not only a noble risk—it was looking more and more like a smart investment. “It was time for the white people—the decision-makers—to wake up to the fact that inclusion is good business,” said Jacobson. “It’s not just this thing you are supposed to care about. It’s better for your bottom line.”

Kevin Kwan, center, with the cast of Crazy Rich Asians.

Griffin Lipson/BFA/REX/Shutterstock

Warner Bros. acquired the project in October 2016 after a heated bidding war with Netflix, and fast-tracked it into production.“It’s not coincidental that [Warner Bros. C.E.O.] Kevin Tsujihara is the first Asian-American studio boss,” said Jacobson. “He was a passionate advocate for [the film]. They came in strong and first, and when we got down to having to make a decision, their conviction and certainty really carried the day. It was our desire for it to be a big Hollywood studio release.”

Now the question is just how far the movie can go. Hidden Figures, featuring a female African-American lead cast, shocked the industry when it wound up grossing $235 million worldwide (and nabbed three Oscar nominations, including best picture). Could the same big business happen for Crazy Rich Asians?

Kwan won’t listen to the numbers talk, but he will say that the marketplace has consistently underestimated the appeal of his romantic trilogy, which also includes the books China Rich Girlfriend and Rich People Problems.

“They underestimated my book from the beginning,” he said. “People are hungry for a meaningful, organic story about contemporary Asia. It’s arguably the most powerful region in the world, with [billions of] people that have fabulous, modern lives. No one was telling this story from the point of view of an Asian family. We will see what happens.”